


for the rest of my life, say yes

by doubtthestars



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Gen, i'm just dumping all my feels into this, musings of a basque gentlemen, nope still not alright, vague mentions of seriker and schweinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-05 00:52:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3098909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doubtthestars/pseuds/doubtthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, history catches up with you. </p>
<p>Xabi doesn't ask why because he understands leaving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for the rest of my life, say yes

It goes like this, Xabi was a captain before he was a man and no one understands how that can be until Steven Gerrard shakes his hand in a place that he never would've imagined ending up in.

His father won the league twice but only Real Sociedad mattered and both his children knew that. 

(Xabi wanted to blame his father for his faults, for his hunger, for Liverpool.)

Liverpool is all heart is what he thinks a decade later, because Stevie is there. Stevie has always been there (until he is not.)

He sees the news explode, how his teammates didn't know, every living soul divided on 'he deserves the chance to move on' and 'what does this mean, why are you leaving us?' They point fingers at managers, at specific moments in time and in the end Xabi never picks up the phone to ask because he already knows.

_(--you are not just losses, just like I am not only trophies but if I had to pick my favorite, it would be you and Istanbul. If you leave Liverpool, where will I go? Where will the tide bring me to shore? Stevie, I never told you, I never visited, I never--)_

Sometimes, history catches up with you. 

They call him aloof. He is a politician, praising every team he is on with as many words as a headline requires. Xabi has the heart of a snake. 

(Lions will always be the king of the animal kingdom and the closest Xabi has been to transforming is next to Steven.)

His father did not understand the loyalty of a one-club man (and his snake heart sheds another layer until it is just raw nerves beating a tune--You'll Never Walk Alone) and Xabi does not either.

He left before he compromised himself. Losing on a team is taking a piece of your life and casting it out to sea. The river is full of Steven's glittering soul and Xabi wondered if any piece of him had found a resting place at the bottom of it. Real Madrid was hailed as a machine and he won the League like his father and he won the World Cup, the European Championship, the Copa del Rey and he didn't even dream of Liverpool.

(Xabi didn't dream of grey clouds but sometimes he would be drowning in red that smelled like Stevie. It was just as heavy as the rain.)

Liverpool was the only place where a loss felt like a win, as long as they sang. Xabi hated it.

_(--I would've gone back, after this one, after wearing a different red just to see if it would fit, if it would dislodge the red you bled for 17 years. Do you know how it feels to see you kneeling on the pitch in devastation, only for a moment because you can't show them the truth, you have to be strong, you have to bleed some more. Dios, Steven, you are Atlas but just a man.)_

He was a captain at 19 and was close enough to touch his father's dreams (second means nothing and everything at the same time.) 

Xabi could not think of 13 years in that place between victory and defeat(he remembers Iker's face as Mourinho dropped him for Adan. He remembers Sergio's anger as another Sevillano took the place between the white posts. He forgets if he was ever that angry for Stevie.)

Bastian Schweinsteiger is another of that ilk with his heart caught and tangled with his club and country. He will never be a stranger in this land because it is his. The players will revolve around him but he will stay. He is nothing like Stevie.

(and he knows how to draw parallels, Schweinsteiger carried another heart in his chest that spoke of making homes in the unknown.)

perhaps that's what never walking alone really meant.

(Like Achilles, he wants to smear the ashes of Liverpool's last champion on him and wail. It is Steven who is leaving now and it feels like a death-knell.)

**Author's Note:**

> I think the news has officially broken me.   
> please comment.


End file.
